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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28705968">the thing with feathers (has clipped wings)</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/gingerpolyglot/pseuds/gingerpolyglot'>gingerpolyglot</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Once Upon a Time (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>CSNLNY, Character Study, F/M, Hopeful Ending, Introspection, Light Angst, Mary Margaret-critical, Neal-critical, Neverland, but well, canon adjacent, gestures to american politics writ large, theoretically canon compliant, this started out a lot less cynical</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 09:27:26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,733</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28705968</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/gingerpolyglot/pseuds/gingerpolyglot</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>In Neverland, Mary Margaret keeps insisting that all they need is hope and faith. Emma disagrees - she knows that watching your hopes fall apart is far more painful than not having any to begin with. A character study, of sorts. Theoretically canon-compliant for 3x01-3x06.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>(background), Captain Hook | Killian Jones/Emma Swan, Prince Charming | David Nolan/Snow White | Mary Margaret Blanchard</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>54</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>CS Neverland New Year</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>the thing with feathers (has clipped wings)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>My entry for CS Neverland New Year! Big shoutout to all the lovely members of the CSNLNY Discord and of course my ever-patient best friend (if you’re a fan of John Wick or The Fugitive go check out <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/teacupsandsheepskulls">teacupsandsheepskulls</a>)</p><p>Fair warning, this started out a lot less cynical but the past few days wore me down a lot. I did at least try to give it a more uplifting ending. Title is a bastardization of an Emily Dickinson poem.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Three hours into the journey, Emma still can’t quite believe she’s sailing on the Jolly Roger with Captain Hook on their way to Neverland. It seems too ridiculous, even compared to slaying Maleficent the dragon or being kidnapped by the Mad Hatter. Still, she sucks it up and deals with it the way she has dealt with every other fairy tale character that's come into her life: she shoves it in a box in her mind and ignores it. She does her best to forget the stories she might know about them and tries not to compare the people she meets to the Disney versions. From what little Hook has said, Peter Pan will not be flitting around singing “You can fly!”</p><p>She leans against the side of the ship, doing her best to mentally prepare herself for the fight ahead. She’s not surprised when David and Mary Margaret come up to try to talk to her. She listens for a while, but her patience is low. Emma doesn't mean to snap at David and Mary Margaret, not really. She knows that they're trying to parent her and make up for lost time, but it grates that they think that her experience is less valid than theirs. The optimism is somehow even worse.</p><p>"The minute I let go of the belief things will get better is the minute I know they won't," Mary Margaret says, all wide eyed and earnest. But she doesn't get it - Emma has never had the luxury of believing things will work out. Emma fights, because that is how she survives, but Emma doesn't believe in pretty words like hope. Hoping things will get better leads to disappointment. Expecting other people to come through leads to betrayal. Emma relies on herself and her own judgement, not vague notions that against all odds things will get better - they never have before.</p><p>Rumplestiltskin seems to think that criticizing her lack of belief will offend her but Emma doesn’t see anything wrong with relying on evidence. Still, after her impromptu swim she’s willing to accept that he might have a point. She rallies her parents, Regina, and Hook, and tries to make sure that the five of them can keep themselves from tearing each other apart.</p><p>Two days in and Emma decides she hates Neverland. It breaks her heart a little, hurts the part of her that is still just an orphan (and fuck you very much for <em>that</em> revelation, Pan). Pan calls her a Lost Girl, and it rankles, because he’s right. She spent half her childhood wishing someone would come and take her away. She’d loved the idea of a land where being an orphan made her part of a family, instead of defining her by its lack.</p><p>It feels like a slap in the face that the place she dreamed about so often as a kid is really the stuff of nightmares.</p><p>They meet Tinker Bell and Emma can feel the box in her mind rattle. She isn't exactly sure what would happen if she let herself think too long about what her life has become. She might start laughing and never stop, but it’s more likely that she’d start running and never turn back.</p><p>Four days in and there's a headache pounding in Emma's skull that gets worse with every argument. The Lost Boys' crying keeps her from sleep, and the humid air and dehydration is only making it worse. Snow's baseless optimism is not helping. With every useless platitude Emma can feel her irritation growing along with the pulsing pain in her skull.</p><p>It's not that Emma resents Mary Margaret, exactly. It's not even that she blames her (or David) for what happened to Henry, despite what she told them on the Jolly Roger. It's just that Emma misses her friend, misses having someone who got her, even if they didn't always see eye to eye.</p><p>Mary Margaret Blanchard believed in hope just like Snow does, but Mary Margaret clung to hope as a way to keep herself moving in a life filled with quiet disappointments. Snow White seems to think that having hope is all that you need in order to overcome any obstacle, and Emma is growing sick of it.</p><p>Finding Neal's cave only worsens the storm of emotion she's trying to rein in. She feels like she hasn't had time to even begin to process Neal being back in her life, let alone losing him again. She especially doesn’t know how to explain all of her complicated feelings about Neal to David and Mary Margaret. They keep thinking she’s sad and mourning, and maybe she is, but she’s mostly angry. At Neal, of course - she’s pissed that they never got to hash out what happened between them, and she’s mad that Henry lost his chance to know his father.</p><p>Honestly though, she’s mostly mad at herself. She’s frustrated that she could still love Neal after all he put her through. They’d never have gotten back together - she has more self-respect than that, even knowing she still has feelings for him. But Emma hates that once again she won’t get any closure from the man who shaped so much of who she is, and she’s furious that she’ll never know whether or not she’d be able to forgive him.</p><p>But her parents don’t want to hear about that - they want to make her feel better about her broken heart, not listen to her rage about the betrayal. They don’t want to listen to her explain that Neal is a large part of why she’s so cynical. They especially don’t want to hear her say that a small part of her blames Neal for Henry being gone, so she tunes out their pep talks as best she can.</p><p>Emma doesn’t need to hope that they’ll save Henry - there’s no other option. But Henry deserves to believe in things like hope and “good always wins” a little longer. She hates that Neal might be responsible for Henry losing some of his faith the same way he was responsible for crushing the last of hers.</p><p>She wasn't lying when she told Mary Margaret that Neverland itself makes her feel like an orphan, but being stuck alone without anyone normal is also definitely making it worse. Of all people, she doesn’t expect Captain Hook to be the person she feels the most kinship with on this godforsaken island, but at least he offers practical help instead of empty encouragement. Her parents may not understand her at all, but with every new revelation it seems like she finds more and more in common with the pirate.</p><p>She still brushes him off when he tries to bond with her, because he’s getting too close and distracting her, and she can’t focus on anything besides saving her son, but in the back of her mind she knows that one day she’s going to have to do something about the growing tension between them.</p><p>A few hours later she ruefully admits to herself that she didn’t mean to do something about the tension quite this soon, but, well. She never pretended (to herself at least) that Hook isn’t attractive.</p><p>Six days in they find out Neal is alive and that's...something. Emma supposes she should feel ashamed that her first instinct was to deny it and want it to be a trick, but she tries not to lie to herself. Neal being alive complicates everything in ways she’s not exactly eager to deal with. Mary Margaret insists that happy endings start with hope, but she still doesn’t seem to realize that Neal is not Emma’s happy ending. </p><p>Six and a half days in, every time Mary Margaret tries to inspire her to believe in hope it feels like stepping on something small and sharp, rubbing against her skin again and again. It’s like a rock in her shoe - and there are currently several, so she has a good basis for comparison. Hope is not what brought Neal back to life, if it’s even true. Hope is not what will save Henry. Emma ignores her mother and keeps walking toward the Echo Caves.</p><p>After they rescue Neal, the five of them sit quietly around the campfire. Mary Margaret still isn’t speaking to David, and Emma has nothing to say to any of them. As far as Emma is concerned David and Mary Margaret’s secrets are just proof that they're full of shit. For all of their talk about hope and belief, David appears to have given up and Mary Margaret, well. She clearly doesn't believe Emma is enough, so Emma has another person to add to the endless list of people who have disappointed her. Finally, Neal breaks the silence.</p><p>“Not that I’m not grateful you rescued me, but we still need to find Henry,” he says. They shift to look at him.</p><p>“We still need a way off the island - Lady Bell said she’d help us if we could find a way out,” Hook replies.</p><p>“Yeah, because we’ve had so much luck there,” Emma scoffs.</p><p>"We can’t just give up! We have to hope we’ll find something to help us,” Mary Margaret interjects.</p><p>“Just have hope? That’s your grand plan? We need an actual plan - every time we’ve tried to go on faith we’ve failed!” Emma retorts. She feels raw and scraped out, and all she wants is to get her son and get the hell off this damn island.</p><p>“There is nothing worse than having no hope," Mary Margaret responds, for what feels like the hundredth time. Emma is tired and hungry and scared and reeling from at least eight different kinds of emotional whiplash and so...Emma snaps.</p><p>"Yes, there is!" she shouts, leaping to her feet. "I used to have hope, okay? I'm <em>your</em> daughter, do you think I'm just like this naturally? I am glad that people always pulled through for you when you needed them, Mary Margaret, I really am. But that is not my experience. That’s not Neal’s experience. I'm willing to bet that's not Regina or Hook's experience either! Do you think that they're just built to be cynical and jaded? That I am?"</p><p>Emma has met Cora and she's read Henry's storybook. She has a decent idea of what Regina's childhood had been like, and she knows a lot about Neal’s past.</p><p>Hook stands behind Mary Margaret looking contemplative, with his head tilted and hand resting on his belt. She's on shakier ground there, but her gut tells her she's on the right track with him as well. She's not sure what exactly his history is, but she believed him when he told her he knew what it was like to lose hope. Like she'd said to him in Granny's, they understand each other. She doesn't want to call it being kindred spirits or anything else so whimsical, but Emma knows they have more in common than she really wants to examine right now. She turns back to her mother.</p><p>For the first time, Mary Margaret is starting to look uncertain. Emma pushes on.</p><p>"When I was a little kid, I used to hope that my family would come get me. They never did. Then I would hope that maybe I'd get adopted. Maybe this time would be my turn to get a real family. That ended by the time I was thirteen - no one wants to adopt a teenager. So then I hoped the foster families would be nice - hoped that they'd feed us enough, and wouldn't hit us, that the dad wouldn't stare at my legs or my chest, but I'd never get more than two out of three. If I ran away I hoped I'd find a safe place to stay, but I slept on a lot of park benches and under a lot of overpasses."</p><p>Emma pauses, breathing heavily. Mary Margaret is clutching David's hand looking heartbroken, but Emma doesn't have it in her anymore to shelter them from her childhood. She hadn't wanted to get into it, but she was sick to death of Mary Margaret insisting that hope was all you needed to succeed. Emma has never been that lucky.</p><p>"You say there's nothing worse than having no hope - I call bullshit. You want to know what's worse than having no hope? Being disappointed. Getting your hopes up over and over and over again and it never working out. I spent two years in Tallahassee-"</p><p>At this, Neal jerks his head around to stare at her. "Tallahassee?" he repeats quietly, looking conflicted. Emma glances at him and curls her lip.</p><p>"Yeah. I hoped that maybe I was worth coming back for, that maybe it was all a misunderstanding. After the two year mark I finally decided hope wasn't getting me anywhere. So no, Mary Margaret, I don't believe in hope."</p><p>With that final, depressing pronouncement she turns on her heel and walks away from the camp. She needs to calm down and get herself under control - Emma knows Mary Margaret will be hurting, and she’ll have to apologize and make it up to her for losing her temper. For now she walks deeper into the jungle. She’s still close enough that she won’t get lost, but she goes just far enough away that she can pretend she’s alone for a few minutes.</p><p>Emma sighs and leans against a tree, then slowly sinks down until she’s seated between its massive roots. She tilts her head back against the trunk and sighs again, trying to calm her racing heart. A few moments later she hears movement in the bushes to her left - it’s probably David coming to play peacemaker, but she pushes herself up and reaches for her cutlass in case it’s someone less friendly.</p><p>However, instead of David emerging from the brush it’s Hook. He raises his eyebrows at her defensive stance and she rolls her eyes, relaxing and lowering the cutlass. When she doesn’t immediately tell him to get lost he comes closer, digging around in his coat for his flask. She hesitates for a moment, then decides she deserves a drink and accepts the proffered rum.</p><p>They stand in silence for a while, passing the flask back and forth. She can tell Hook wants to say something, but she waits until he finishes his last sip of rum and puts away the flask.</p><p>“All right, what is it?” she asks. He glances up at her and then away, his hand coming up to scratch at his ear. He’d done that before their kiss, she remembers, and wonders if it’s a nervous tic.</p><p>“I just wanted to check on you,” he says. Her superpower tells her this is the truth, but she finds it hard to believe that’s the whole truth. She must wear her skepticism on her face, because he continues.</p><p>“I know what it’s like, to lose hope over and over and over again. I know how it wears you down, and I understand your frustration with your mother. But I’ve also learned from watching you hero types that there’s always hope. Perhaps it’s a different kind of hope than what your mother believes in, but trusting yourself? Trusting that you can find a solution or survive some type of peril? I don’t know about you, Swan, but that sounds a lot like hope to me,” Hook says.</p><p>He tilts his head and quirks his lips, just a bit, and she finds her lips twisting into a small smile. Against her will she can see what he’s getting at, and she’s surprised to find it doesn’t bother her the way her mother’s seemingly endless optimism does. Maybe it’s because she knows he understands why she’s so unwilling to go on faith alone, and that he’s not discounting how many times she’s been burned. Hook is still watching her, and she gives him a rueful smile and nod.</p><p>He returns both the nod and the smile, then gestures broadly in the direction of their camp.</p><p>“After you, milady?” he asks, more playful than she expects. Emma takes one deep breath, then nods. She starts walking back to camp, Hook following behind. Henry is still missing, and she still has to deal with Neal and her parents. But for right now, there’s someone who gets her, and the warm feeling that gives her is something a little like hope.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Come say hi on <a href="https://www.tumblr.com/blog/gingerpolyglot">tumblr</a></p></blockquote></div></div>
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